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October 16th, 2025 06:15
Disable Boot Guard and Whitelist in BIOS E7470
Hi,
I have a Dell Latitude E7470 with BIOS A22 and have analyzed a full BIOS dump. It seems Boot Guard and the internal whitelist prevent recognition of WWAN modules and other hardware. The system is no longer corporate-owned, and my goal is only to fully enable the hardware for personal use.
Questions:
Is it possible to disable Boot Guard without the OEM key?
How does Dell enforce the whitelist at the SMM/DXE level?
Are there any official or community-supported methods to bypass these restrictions?
Thanks,
Shahab
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ejn63
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October 16th, 2025 20:51
The system does not have a hardware whitelist at all, so wherever you found that it does is mistaken.
It's not impossible that hardware that did not exist when this system was produced (a decade ago) might have issues, but that would require a complete firmware rewrite.
user_286cae
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October 16th, 2025 21:20
@ ejn63
Thanks for clarifying that there’s no hardware whitelist.
However, I’m still observing a repeatable issue on my Latitude E7470 (BIOS A22):
After installing the Fibocom WWAN driver, the module is detected correctly and appears under Network adapters.
The “Cellular” option shows up but remains inactive.
After a restart or cold boot, the system either freezes at the Dell logo or boots into Windows but then freezes within seconds.
After the next reboot, the WWAN disappears completely from Device Manager and “Cellular” is gone.
Could this be related to an ACPI/ME firmware power-state handling issue for the WWAN slot on this platform?
There are no BIOS options for “WWAN Auto Disable” or “Wireless Radio Control” on my system.
Any recommendations for a stable driver/firmware combination for Fibocom modules on the E7470 would be very helpful
ejn63
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October 17th, 2025 19:19
Sounds more like a connection problem between the card and your provider's network. Are the drivers you have compatible with whatever OS is on the system as well?
There won't be any firmware level control over the card -- that's all handled by software, not the system firmware.
user_286cae
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October 18th, 2025 05:54
@ejn63
hi ejn63,
Thanks again for your reply. I’ve found that the real issue was related to the PCIe/ACPI initialization process after reboot.
When the Fibocom WWAN driver is first installed, the module is detected correctly and the Cellular option appears in Windows. But after a restart, the BIOS doesn’t fully reinitialize the PCIe link and ACPI handshake for the WWAN device, causing it to disappear or freeze the system at the Dell logo.
It seems to be a hardware–firmware communication sync issue rather than a pure driver or whitelist problem.
Thanks,
Shahab